Mythbusters: One Way?

A message from John 14:1-17 by Don Heatley from Vision Community Church 3/15/09

It has happened to me so many times, that I don’t even know with which story to begin.  At our former church, an eighty year old woman in a Bible study  took me aside quietly and asked, “My best friend is Jewish and is the most good and moral person I know.  Is she really going to Hell because she’s Jewish?”  At a dinner party, a Vision member introduced me to their neighbor, who promptly attacked me by asking, “How can you say yours is the only right religion and everyone else is evil?”  I didn’t realize said that.  I had thought I said, “Hi I’m Don.”  At every dialogue sermon I have had here at Vision, some form of this question is always asked.  Not so much as a litmus test of “Do you believe Jesus is the only way?”  But more with an attitude of incredulity, “How can Jesus be the only way to God?”

That incredulity is understandable.  After all, we live in a pluralistic world.  Truth is, we always have.  It’s just that we are more aware of it now.  For those of us from culturally American Christian backgrounds, our parents and grandparents socialized mostly with other cultural Christians.  Sure, maybe they had a few Jewish friends, but that was about as exotic as things got.  Our grandparents went through most of their lives never really interacting with Hindus, except perhaps at the end of their lives when they were cared for Indian doctors.  Non-Christian people were a bit of an abstraction for previous generations, relegated to the tales of Rudyard Kipling or the pages of National Geographic.

But our world is very different.  Our children and we have friendships with people of diverse cultures and religions.  This became clear to me a few years ago when my daughter had a sleepover birthday party.  Our den was packed with sleeping bags holding girls who were Protestant, Catholic and Jewish. There was a Charismatic, an atheist, a white South African and an AIDS orphan from Ethiopia.  It was a veritable “We Are the World” in Sponge Bob and Dora the Explorer sleep attire.

These relationships and interactions with different cultures and religions, which we all now have, raise new questions for us.  What does God think of them, we wonder?  Are they all going to Hell?   A century ago, when particular religious and racial groups were viewed as somehow less human, this was not such a predicament.  But these people are now our friends and neighbors.  These are people we love.  They are good people.  

How can we say “We believe in Jesus Christ his only Son” without the words catching in our throat just a little?  Isn’t that saying we Christians are right about it all, and everyone else is all wrong - right?    Is that what we’re required to believe?

There have been two responses to those questions and the pluralist world from which they spring. The first, by some Christians, claims that Jesus is the only way, with an undue emphasis on the word “only”.  After all, Jesus said “no one comes to the Father except by me.”  What else could that possibly mean, they would claim? 

Not only do they believe in Jesus because he is the only way to God, they believe that you have to believe that Jesus is the only way to God. Merely believing in or following Jesus is not enough, according to this mindset.  You also must believe that any other way is wrong.  It becomes a salvational issue. In other words, it is not believing in Jesus that saves us, it is believing in the exclusivity of Jesus. There is a difference.  You must believe other people are going to Hell in order for you to go to Heaven.  It is almost as if, the wrongness of other religions has become more important than the rightness of Jesus.

I’m not so sure that’s what Jesus had in mind when had in that discussion with his disciples that night in Jerusalem.  After all, Jesus was not speaking as a panelist in a seminar about world religions.  He was speaking intimately to his best friends for whom following another religion wasn’t even an option.  They were already disciples. In fact, within the Gospels, Jesus makes few references to religious traditions outside of his own.  Primarily, he speaks about Judaism and its God to his fellow Jews.  He teaches about this God from within the context of Judaism and proclaims the way to God is through himself.  He never claims to be forming a new religion called Christianity which he then sets alongside other religions and says, “Here. Pick this one - or else.”

Instead, Jesus invites his followers to know him.  To know Jesus, to be a Christian, does not mean we have to put down, condemn or even disprove other religions.  Picking a  religion objectively is like matching paint colors when you’re wearing tinted glasses.  We cannot step outside our own context or subjectivity in order to do it.  Religion is not something we pick from among competing products.  It’s not like shopping for a car.  But here’s the funny thing. Both those who think all non-Christians are going to Hell and those whom most find that idea offensive, act as if it is.

Which brings us to the other popular response to this pluralistic world.  It is a response of moving from pluralism to relativism.  Rather than claiming one right religion, it assigns all of them equal value.  So the choice of a spiritual path is never made or several are synthesized together into an undemanding spiritual Jell-O.  The thing about Jell-O is, it isn’t very satisfying.

You show me a girl whose parents said, “We’ll expose her to all religions and when she’s old enough she can make her own choice,” and I’ll show you a young woman ends up on no spiritual path.  You show me a man who seeks to combine the best from every religion, and I will show you a man who avoids the hardest parts of all of them.

When Thomas asked Jesus to show him the way, Jesus responded with neither a tirade against other religions nor a hybrid mix of them.  Jesus responded with himself.  That was the point.  The way to God is not through a methodology, or a belief system, but through a relationship, through a person. 

So if you are someone who is hesitant to take the plunge and follow Jesus, because you assume it would mean putting down other religions, be assured it does not.  Jesus did not ask us to do that and you will never hear that from me in this church.  We do not emphasize being exclusive, here at Vision.  But know this, we do emphasize being particular.  I believe we can be particular without being exclusive.  I believe we can invite people to the positive experience of meeting God in Jesus Christ without making negative attacks on others faith traditions.  John Franke, a professor at Biblical Seminary says, “I believe that Jesus is the only way, but I believe there are many ways to Jesus.”

What concerns me about all this discussion of whether or not Jesus is the only way, is that in the midst of this sideshow, few people are actually following that Way.  Jesus didn’t ask us to hold an opinion about whether he was the only way.  He just asked us to follow that Way.  Once you’re following the Way, who cares whether or not there is another path somewhere else.  We are not going to become experts at all of them.  Trust me, you and I are not bright enough to practice two or three religions.  We can barely handle one.

I realize that makes some people uncomfortable.  However, if you feel that way ask yourself, as long as we follow Jesus, why is it so important to you that other people are wrong?  Why is it so important to you that other people go to Hell?  Is that desire coming the most Christ-like part of you?  Or is it coming from somewhere else?

Mother Teresa didn’t minister to the poor and sick of Calcutta because she was avoiding Hell.  She did it out of her love for Jesus Christ. Don’t follow Jesus because the other choices are wrong.  Follow Jesus because he is right.

When it comes to everyone’s eternal destiny, I have to plead humility.  Sure, I could use John 14 as a proof text to condemn other religions; but I’m not so confident that I would be true to that text if I did. I don’t have the cosmic vantage point from which to say, only Christians are right.  But I do have the life experience to say that I have found Jesus to be the only way.  I have found that the Way of Jesus leads to truth and to life and ultimately to God.  And over the next few weeks, we’ll see why.

God is God.  God will bring to God’s self whomever God wants, regardless of our quoting texts or asking questions. “I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son.”  I hope we would all be able to say those words with integrity, not so that we would push others away from God, but to celebrate that we have been reconciled with God.